SIT DOWN, HAVE A DRINK, RELAX.

Felines Furever!

Our Guest Poster is none other than Kampong Palmer Trev, whose delightful remarks yesterday evening on his betters caught my eye. Trev (if he will forgive my informality) was kind enough to agree to the “appropriation” of his comment, and even more kindly supplied photographic evidence. Thank you, Trev, and may this be the first of many.

My neighbours are away for a long weekend of swimming competitions in Sydney – so I’m looking after their two cats and the two that own this place and consider me their maid. I really want my head read for feeding them ‘roo meat – all four now expect it.

Wally, aka Walter Furry-Griffen

“You can stick your Aldi canned muck … and we have had enough dry stuff, Trev”.

There are, of course, those who say that anthropomorphism is wrong (“No, darling, we are educated people who do not do that sort of thing. Animals are animals and we have no right to project human values. While we do believe in the brotherhood of man, it’s no reason, my dear, for you to associate with them – why else would we be sending you to that school? Now, eat your carob, sweetie, and before you go off for your music lesson, let me explain why when you are grown-up you should vote Green and have a Family Trust”).

Bugger ’em. Life is too short – and why have domestic animals if you can’t talk to them? Yes, lah, as in every other election I’ll be voting ALP.

Old Sporty (about 16 years old and built like Stalin crossed with a Yak fighter aircraft), from next door, is allegedly a Russian Blue cat. IMHO, the only Russian thing about him is his appetite – and it’s just as well I never have vodka in the house. I’d have visions of waking in the morning and finding Sporty reeling around the joint with a bottle in his paws, and meowing the “Volga Boat Song”. That black cat T-shirt on the linked post has some truth in it.

Sporty, the alleged Russian Blue

This is Canberra. Thick feathery winter doona onto bed today and a Chinese quilt on top – Ok, maybe should go under the doona (next time in China I’m going to buy one of those thick quilts from Shanghai filled with spun silk). If I find any trace of cat fur or a dug-out coriander seedling in the next 2 days, I’ll be invoking the ‘Kampong Palmer Internal Security Act’. Punishment without trial – do not pass go and do not collect $100. One swift swipe of the rotan (in this case, a whippy bamboo tomato stake). And to think I have a cat called Harry – named after Lee Kuan Yew (LKY). The uppitty little tabby bastard (“Singapore Tiger”) now wakes me up in the morning for the sake of it. It used to be in order to be fed. He must be about 5 or 6 years old now – in his prime. I’m still to discover if he has a law degree and a fondness for defamation litigation.

Cats – they probably taste good out of a very hot wok, with a bit of oyster sauce and a hint of ginger. You would be better off with a labrador as a pet. Then again, you could have an old black cat like the Tunku Jazz. A cat who thinks he is a labrador, or an old and rather benevolent Malaysian ex PM who lived long and had a fondness for slow racehorses, fast women and whisky. – Jazz even likes going for a walk and is always happy to see you when you arrive home. Jazz is my kind of moggie.

What you need to know about NBN raids — and why they could be good for Labor
Why did the police suddenly raid a Senator’s office?

The Australian Federal Police’s decision to raid the offices of former Labor communications minister Stephen Conroy and the home of a senior ALP staffer overnight has thrown the National Broadband Network directly into the 2016 election campaign for the first time.

Late yesterday evening the Australian Federal Police raided offices in East Melbourne and a home in Brunswick as part of an execution of two warrants related to the investigation of a leak of sensitive documents from NBN.

NBN referred the matter to the Australian Federal Police on December 3 last year, and it appears to be related to a leak, from late November, of a document outlining that Optus’ cable network — acquired by NBN as part of the so-called multi-technology mix — might be in worse condition than expected and NBN might need to roll out a new network in areas where the Optus cable network was in such poor condition.

That document was first leaked to Fairfax, before being quickly trumpeted by opposition communications minister Jason Clare in a press release. A second leak was given to The Australian a week later, outlining that the cost to repair the legacy Telstra copper network for fibre-to-the-node services could be $640 million. Again, Clare issued a press release shortly after the news story was published. The leaked presentation in that release remained on Clare’s website this morning.

The third damaging leak from NBN came in February, and it was leaked to Fairfax, which reported delays in NBN’s internal roll-out targets for fibre-to-the-node services. Yet another Clare release followed shortly after with a link to the document. This document is now no longer online.

The fourth was given to Lateline in March, related to trials of fibre-to-the-distribution-point technology — believed to be the technology that would be a key component of Labor’s NBN policy.

The warrant makes reference to stories in The Australian, the AFR, on the ABC, technology site Delimiter and in The Sydney Morning Herald and seeks access to emails, computers, phone records and official documents.

As Crikey reported at the time, the leaks were highly damaging to NBN, and to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull — who was the communications minister for the majority of the past three years and spearheaded the controversial change in policy for the network from Labor’s 93% fibre-to-the-premises (FttP) to a mixture of FttP, fibre-to-the-node and cable.

It’s unclear why the AFP waited more than six months from the first leak and two months since the most recent leak to conduct the raids on Conroy’s offices at the Commonwealth Parliamentary Offices in Melbourne and a staffer’s house — not to mention in the second week of an election campaign. The AFP this morning issued a press release claiming that its decision was “independent of government” and part of a “phased approach” the AFP had taken to the investigation:

“The next phase of this investigation involves the examination and analysis of material collected during these search warrants. The federal government and opposition were appropriately notified and advised of operational activity regarding this matter after it commenced yesterday.”

Crikey understands the timing has more to do with the AFP moving on preventing potential future leaks.

The investigation is into whether there has been a breach of the Crimes Act by leaking documents of the Commonwealth.

The two Labor staffers believed to be under investigation are Ryan Hamilton, Jason Clare’s media adviser, who is currently Labor’s campaign director, and Andrew Byrne, a policy adviser in Clare’s office, who used to work for Conroy. AFP officers left Byrne’s home at 5am today. The AFP confirmed that an NBN staffer was on site for the raids and was appointed as a constable assisting police during the raids.

Crikey understands that more than a dozen NBN employees have been interviewed as part of the police investigation. AFP Commissioner Andrew Colvin this morning refused to state whether metadata had been accessed as part of its investigation. NBN previously refused Crikey‘s freedom of information request into whether it had referred leaks to the AFP for investigation.

Labor has argued that the documents in question are covered by parliamentary privilege because they are part of Conroy’s work on the Senate Select Committee on the National Broadband Network. Conroy often raised the leaked documents during committee hearings or when NBN appeared before Senate estimates hearings.

AFP commissioner Andrew Colvin told journalists this morning that because parliamentary privilege had now been claimed, the documents were now sealed and it would be up to the Senate to decide whether the documents were subject to parliamentary privilege.

This means, effectively, that the AFP cannot continue its investigation until after the election, when Parliament resumes.

Shadow Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus has also said the government needs to answer questions on whether it pressured NBN into referring the matter to the AFP for investigation. Coalition election spokesman Mathias Cormann ducked the question three times during interviews this morning. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said he was only made aware of the investigation yesterday.

Questions on whether other government ministers or staffers were aware of the investigation have so far gone unanswered by the Coalition’s campaign media team. NBN declined to comment.

NBN CEO Bill Morrow told Crikey in March that he believed it was likely that the leaks were political.

“Is this a function of someone who believes in one party or another and therefore wants to help them get back into office? I don’t know, but it would sure suggest that the volume going out near an election period that that’s more what this issue is than any sort of disgruntled nature,” he said. “I get the fact there are a lot of people who have a lot of belief systems, and I respect that. We have a policy when it is confidential, that you break that policy if you leak that sort of stuff, there’s some laws and some cases where you are breaking the law. We emphasise that.”

He said that NBN had corporate security to try to ensure that leaked documents weren’t getting out.

“And that’s all we are really doing to try and keep the attention and the awareness.”

While the NBN has not been an election issue for quite a while, the AFP’s raids have put it front and centre. Labor is already making an issue of why the AFP raided Labor over this leak yet has not raided anyone else over the 20 or so leaks from the Coalition government over the past few years, including the leak of the draft defence white paper to The Australian. Colvin said that the AFP had not been selective in choosing which leaks to investigate.

Colvin said that claims of political bias over the investigation of the leaks had been referred to the professional standards branch in the AFP for investigation

Biggy’s complaining he has no Internet. I thought it was a gag, but he’s WA and I know they’ve been affected. I did say the upside was it was creating mountains of work for ASIO & AFP trawling through his metadata.

Julie Bishop’s office has brushed aside concerns raised by Liberal National party supporters about a $300 a head fundraiser to be held in a Brisbane restaurant owned by a convicted heroin trafficker with longstanding family links to the underworld.

The foreign minister is billed as the special guest at the event next Tuesday at Mariosarti, owned by Daniel Milos, whose family history in the drug trade was widely reported when his brother Peter was murdered in 2014.

The Australian Federal Police have executed two searches on ALP electoral offices over leaks relating to the National Broadband Network, with slow upload speeds allegedly forcing the officers to have to collect documents in person.

While reports are still trickling in this morning, the AFP have claimed that the raids were in relation to the leaking of documents related to the underperformance of the NBN rollout – and while they would have loved to avoid a raid entirely, it was simply taking to long to sit around and wait for the files to upload.

I certainly didn’t need an AFP raid and its consequent noisy outrage to tell me fraudband is as big a dud as the smarmy git himself. People around here have been complaining for months and I’m not the only one who has been expressing the desire to shove it down the git’s throat. Using the internet has become an exercise in frustration one only indulges in when it is absolutely necessary.